What do you get when Steven Spielberg produces a sci-fi fantasy flick directed by J.J. Abrams? The answer: About as much as you’d expect- a unique fusion of all the best elements of E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Cloverfield, and Lost. Yes, despite tall odds, Super 8 is both a tender coming of age story and a riveting mystery adventure. As an added bonus, it’s all wrapped up in a delightfully nostalgic 70s setting.
A few months after his mother’s death, 14-year-old Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) is just trying to enjoy being a kid. It’s 1979 and all Joe and his friends want to do is make a zombie movie with a super 8 camera. While trying to film a night scene at an old train station, Joe and the gang witness (and record) a monstrous train wreck caused by one of their high school teachers. When strange things begin happening around town and the US Air Force starts taking over, Joe, his friends, and the adults in town all try to figure out what is going on.
Enough cannot be said about the talented group of child actors chosen for this film. Most of the boys had little professional experience on their resumes, which makes all of their performances flow with a realism that is lacking from more polished Hollywood child actors. The adult side of the story is pretty much the Kyle Chandler show, which is just fine by me. As a fan of the TV show Friday Night Lights, I think I would enjoy hearing Chandler read from a phone book.
Another triumph of this film is all the little details. I myself did not grow up in the late 70s, so I can only trust J.J. Abrams to recall correctly the sights and sounds of the era of his youth. The details I’m talking about are the nuances of childhood that transcend generations. The boys all swear around each other as if they’re showing off a shiny new toy they’ve discovered. The body language is also spot on with all the teen angst, romance, and the kind of foolhardy attitude that would lead a teen boy to rush headlong into danger.
Only a few things don’t work well for this film. First, the train crash the kids witness is utterly absurd in both its physics and duration. It looks cool but there’s no way that happens in real life. Second, Abrams cannot get away from using special effects and CGI to bring parts of his story to life. Despite all the technological advancements over the years, there’s still no way to make an overabundance of CGI look realistic. Whether it’s Abram’s choice or done to meet the demands of the movie-going public, there’s not enough Spielbergian restraint on showing us more than what subtle special effects can pull off. Anytime the illusion of reality is broken, it hurts a film in ways that can rarely be made up for, especially for a film with a real world setting.
Will Super 8 go down in history as an iconic sci-fi film? No. Did it set out to accomplish such a lofty goal? No. All Super 8 wants to do is make us feel nostalgic for more innocent times when kids were kids (and actually played outside), people were less cynical, and our minds could still be captured and held in awe by heartwarming tales of the supernatural. To that end, this film is a success.
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